? Text Online Reading Site Domain Mobile Phone Reading Please Visit
"Big Brother, should we march into Anqing or chase after Shi Ni?" Ceng Guoquan asked Ceng Guofan very seriously.
On the 24th of January, 1859, Ceng Guofan finally agreed to the imperial court's order to "seize love" and returned to the mountains. At this time, Hu Lin Yi, the Governor of Hubei, had returned home to mourn the passing of his mother. The Xianfeng Emperor appointed Ceng Guofan as the inspector-general of Hubei, responsible for the task of fighting against the Taiping army.
Ceng Guofan's strategy had always been very clear. With the Yangtze River waterway as the core, his troops would follow the Yangtze River to seize the Taiping army's key points one by one, and finally attack Tianjing City. After pulling out of Jiujiang, there was only one point left before marching into Tianjing City, the capital of the Taiping Rebellion, and that was Anqing.
Anqing was the provincial capital of Anhui, but when Vézé conquered Anhui, he handed it over to Qin Rigang, who was sent by Yang Xiuqing, the King Of The East, and led his troops to Luzhou. Coupled with the fact that Yang Xiuqing directly controlled the areas of southern Anhui and Anqing, in the strategy of the Taiping army, Luzhou gradually became the core of the Huainan area of Anhui. At this time, the flames of war were everywhere, and the Yangtze River trade route had been cut off. Anqing had become a relatively simple military fortress.
If they wanted to attack Tianjing City, they had to take down Anqing. This was something that Ceng Guofan and the others had decided on. However, when Ceng Guofan was under Ding You's care, the battle situation changed drastically. Shi Dakai's attack on Zhejiang had failed, and his attack on Fujian had failed again. He could only lead his troops to southern Jiangxi. The southern part of Jiangxi had no way to support Shi Dakai's 200,000 troops, so Shi Dakai turned west and was about to kill his way into Hunan.
"No!" Ceng Guofan immediately rejected the idea. "The Cantonese bandits are best at turning the tables. They don't have a fixed residence and come and go like the wind. If we chase after the Cantonese bandits, when will we be able to destroy them? That's why I came up with the strategy of 'being the host and the guest'. We must let the Cantonese bandits attack our army themselves. Old Jiu, your nickname is Iron Bucket. How could you say such a silly thing? "
If Ceng Guofan personally led his troops into battle, he would definitely lose every battle. However, when it came to setting the rules for the level of battle, it wasn't just one or two skills, but four or five skills. Against the Taiping army's tactics, he could also come up with tactics to counter them.
Ceng Guoquan did not have any intention to oppose his brother. He continued to explain: "At this time, the traitor Shi has been defeated again and again. This time, he wants to advance to Hunan. If our army flanks him from behind, he will definitely lose. After killing the Guangdong Bandits, we can focus on attacking Jiangning. "
"Us chasing after Shi Ni, or Shi Ni taking the initiative to attack our army, which is better?" Ceng Guofan asked.
Ceng Guoquan was stunned. Then, she lowered her head. "Big Brother is right!"
Ceng Guofan continued, "This time, when our army attacks Anqing, Jiang Zhongyuan will also do his best to attack Shouzhou. Once Shouzhou is breached, they can continue to advance to Liu 'an, Tong City, and besiege Anqing with our army. As soon as Anqing falls, our two armies will attack Luzhou. The situation has already been decided. "
"Big Brother, are we going to give the credit to Jiang Zhongyuan?" Ceng Guoquan asked immediately.
To this reasonable question, Ceng Guofan used a gentle tone to explain: "There are at least a hundred thousand Guangdong Bandits in Anhui. They are all old bandits and very fierce. If Jiang Zhongyuan can't break Shouzhou, we will have to attack Anqing ourselves. It will certainly be strenuous. Moreover, you will fight alongside Jiang Zhongyuan. What is there not to trust? "
Jiang Zhongyuan was an outstanding representative of the landlords of the two lakes. He was the first landlords to train their armed forces to be promoted to the rank of inspector-general. Not only was he a role model admired by the local armed forces, but he could also be said to be the ancestor of the Xiang Army, the Huai army, and the Chu army that came out of Hunan. Moreover, when Ceng Guofan and Jiang Zhongyuan were in the capital, Jiang Zhongyuan lived in Ceng Guofan's mansion. The two of them were very close and had written to each other frequently in the past few years. Many strategic considerations were discussed by the two of them before reporting to the court. The future competition that Ceng Guoquan mentioned might happen. However, at this time, Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army and Jiang Zhongyuan's Huai army were not only on the same side in the fight against the Taiping Rebellion, but they were also close political allies.
As a general, Ceng Guoquan was worried about the future distribution of military merits. He wasn't deliberately disagreeing with Ceng Guofan, nor did he have any malice towards Jiang Zhongyuan. It was just that his status required him to raise such a question. It was clearly inappropriate for other generals to raise such a question. Since Ceng Guofan had set the tone, Ceng Guoquan saw that the generals around him had no intention of objecting, so he replied, "We'll listen to Big Brother."
The entire military conference decided the future direction of the Xiang Army and the cooperation between the Xiang Army and the allies. However, they only discussed this issue. They didn't mention anything about the imperial court, Vézé, or the Xiang Army, as if they didn't exist at all.
Just when the Xiang Army, the Huai army, and the Chu Army had all decided on the future direction of development and began to execute it. The meeting in the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office of the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces didn't react so quickly. This wasn't because the Liberation Army had a problem with strategic considerations or decisiveness, but because the Liberation Army had too many strategic issues to consider. It took considerable consideration to straighten out all these issues.
"Commander-in-chief! Insufficient iron ore! "Pang Congcong, the political commissar of the Guangdong Iron and Steel Company, raised a question. This wasn't the first time Pang Congcong had raised this question. Since 1858, the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office had faced the predicament of insufficient iron and coal mines. But even though this topic was so important, Pang Congcong's speech itself still attracted the "attention" of some of the representatives of the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office.
Pang Congcong was a female member of the Restoration Society. In the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office, Vézé especially promoted women. Not only did Pang Congcong become a national representative, but Luo Dagang's wife, Su Sanniang, whose child was less than two years old, was also elected as a national representative. Among the eighty-one national representatives of the Restoration Society, there were six women. And Pang Congcong, as the political commissar of the Guangdong Iron and Steel Company, was one of the people who could participate in important economic meetings.
Pang Congcong kept an Audrey? Short hair that looked like Hepburn. This kind of short hair was one of the three general female hairstyles in the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office. It was convenient to put hair into a work cap. Another hairstyle for women working in factories was bangs in the front and a short ponytail at the back. It was convenient to tie up hair and stuff it into a hat or tie it up with a hairnet. Women working in the administrative department had the "Tong Hua Hair" of the Vézé era. Their hair was neat in front and back.
Pang Congcong had a baby face and such a cute hairstyle. It made people feel like she wasn't even sixteen years old yet. This kind of childish feeling, coupled with her female identity, made it difficult for people to treat her proposal seriously.
But this proposal was really too important. At least the representatives of the Iron and Steel Group nodded vigorously. There were many iron smelting shops in the area of Foshan, and there were nearly ten thousand workers in the smelting and processing of iron products. The Liberation Army had originally thought that these people were competitors, and reality proved that they were indeed competitors. But after they lost the competition, they were all absorbed into the Liberation Army's iron and steel enterprises, or obediently became peripheral iron products processing workshops of the iron and steel enterprises.
In this era without computer control, it was very easy for a capital- and labor-intensive enterprise like the iron and steel center to provide fifty to sixty thousand jobs, let alone ten thousand people. The current iron and steel enterprises and peripheral workshops of the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office provided nearly twenty thousand jobs. In order for these twenty thousand people to work normally, the amount of iron ore and coal needed was very large.
In the twenty-first century, China's ports were full of iron ore and coal imported from foreign countries, and foreign countries were clamoring for China to import more raw materials. So Vézé himself put a lot of effort into establishing a mine exploration system, but deep in his heart, he really didn't have such a strong sense of crisis.
But the reality of industrial development made Vézé's subordinates first put forward this urgent request, especially when a female representative who looked to be less than sixteen years old repeatedly emphasized this problem with a serious expression and an anxious tone. Vézé even found it a little funny.
This problem had been discussed before. There were open-air iron mines in the Shaoguan area, and among the nearly twenty thousand iron and steel enterprise employees of the Restoration Commander-In-Chief's Office, four to five thousand were miners. However, there were insufficient coal mines in Guangdong. If they wanted to solve the coal problem nearby, their first choice was the place where Vézé had once fought, Chenzhou, Hunan.
Chenzhou was located at the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River, and there were waterways that could be used. There were coal mines in Daozhou, to the west of Chenzhou. A few years ago, the Taiping army recruited and set up an earth camp in the area of Daozhou and Chenzhou. It was formed by the miners in the area of Daozhou and Chenzhou.
Of course, the Liberation Army knew the local products of Chenzhou. As long as they started to build an industrial system, the builders would be able to understand many things on their own without special guidance from Vézé. For example, the Liberation Army completely understood one thing: if they wanted to obtain raw materials without restrictions, they had to control the source of raw materials.
Vézé looked at everyone with a smile like the Maitreya Buddha. Pang Congcong obviously misunderstood Vézé's meaning. She couldn't help but slap the table and shout, "Commander-In-Chief! We must take that place down!! "
Looking at the serious expression on Pang Congcong's baby face, Vézé couldn't help but cover his face and laugh out loud. The other comrades felt that this "little girl" was full of murderous intent, which really didn't match her appearance and temperament. Coupled with Vézé taking the lead in laughing, everyone in the meeting room roared with laughter.
Pang Congcong's eyes turned red, and tears welled up in her eyes. However, she had a strong personality and managed to hold back her tears amidst the laughter of the crowd.
Seeing that Pang Congcong was about to cry, Vézé hurriedly stopped laughing and scolded, "Stop laughing!"
When the laughter subsided a little, Vézé said to Pang Congcong seriously, "Comrade Pang Congcong, if I didn't hold back my laughter just now and caused you to misunderstand that I was laughing at you, then I'll formally apologize to you. I didn't mean to laugh at you at all! I just feel that I'm very pleased that everyone has such an understanding of industrialization. Everyone knows where the problem is, and they've also thought of a solution! This is very good. It means that Comrade Pang Congcong is an outstanding talent and an outstanding member of the Recovery Society! "
Pang Congcong heard that Vézé was serious and that he even publicly apologized, and the feeling of being wronged faded a lot. However, she heard Vézé continue to say, "However, we still have to have a comprehensive discussion about the war. Although this discussion will take up a lot of time, once the plan is completed, we will carry it out to the end! "
Hearing that Vézé wouldn't immediately send out the troops, Pang Congcong's expression turned a little ugly again. She said, "Commander-in-chief, we really don't have much left in storage. The new smelting furnaces have already been built, and our comrades in the army are clamoring for us to quickly provide weapons. We can't hold on any longer! "
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
